As one method of exposing a photosensitive material, there is known the so-called scanner system image formation method in which an original is scanned and an exposure is made on a silver halide photographic material based on this image signal to form a negative image or a positive image corresponding to the image of the original.
There are various recording devices which make practical use of the scanner system image formation method and these scanner system recording devices have conventionally used glow lamps, xenon lamps, mercury lamps, tungsten lamps, light-emitting diodes and the like for their recording light source. However, all these light sources have practical disadvantages such as a weak output and a short life. By way of scanners which make up for these disadvantages, there are those which make use of a Ne-He laser, argon laser, He-Cd laser or other such coherent laser light source as the light source for the scanner system. With these, a high output is obtained, but there are disadvantages in that the device is large, expensive and requires a modulator, and the handling properties are inferior, there being restrictions on the safelight of the photosensitive material since visible light is used.
In contrast, semiconductor lasers have the advantages that they are small-scale, inexpensive and easy to modulate, have a longer life than the abovementioned lasers and have improved handling operability since, because they emit light in the inffared region, it is possible to use a bright safelight when a photosensitive material having a sensitivity in the infrared region is employed.
Recently, photosensitive materials which are compatible with semiconductor lasers making use of the above advantages have been put on the market.
The computerization of the printing industry, notably with the layout scanner, has made volume and high quality printing possible in the office as well due to reductions in size. Thus, there is a method involving outputting the whole of the plate preparation stage onto printing paper or film using a computer photosetting apparatus via a floppy disk, the operation being carried out on a CRT screen, employing a photographic material which is sensitive to a semiconductor laser (680 nm).
However, the abovementioned photosensitive materials have problems in that they require a large space for replenishing the solution or in their operational environment since large amounts of developing solution are used in the office, and there is therefore a desire for silver halide photographic materials and a development processing method with which there is little performance variation and with which the rollers in the dry zone of the automatic developing apparatus are not contaminated even when replenishment amounts are reduced and water-saving processing is carried out.
Photographic materials composed of silver halide grains which are sensitive to semiconductor laser light, i.e. which are spectrally sensitized to the infrared region, and which contain silver chloride are described in JP-A-60-80841, JP-A-62-299838, JP-A-62-299839, JP-A-61-70550, JP-A-63-115159, JP-A-63-115160 and JP-A-63115161 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese Patent Application"). Silver bromide or silver iodobromide systems are described in JP-A-63-49752, JP-A-63-83719 and JP-A-63-89838.
In addition to the dyes described in the abovementioned patents, many sensitizing dyes have previously been disclosed for enhancing the speed in the infrared region. These are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,095,854, 2,095,856, 2,955,939, 3,458,318, 3,482,978, 3,552,974, 3,573,921, 3,582,344, 3,615,632 and 4,011,083.
Methods for improving development unevenness or silver staining during development processing are described in JP-A-56-24347, JP-A-62-212615, JP-A-57-26848, JP-A-57-116340, JP-A-60-258537 and JP-A-62-212651.